Cyriel Dessers has reminded Rangers’ critics the league “is not lost or won” in the first month – insisting their best is yet to come.
The Ibrox striker says Philippe Clement’s side have taken strides forward since their Celtic Park humbling four weeks ago – and have learned lessons from that 3-0 defeat.
Rangers sit third and trail Glasgow rivals Celtic and Aberdeen by five points after just six games. That’s led to pressure increasing on Clement and his players. But a four-game winning run without conceding a goal has restored confidence among Dessers and his team mates ahead of the visit of French giants Lyon in the Europa League on Thursday night.
Last Thursday’s 2-0 win in Malmo in the same competition injected some belief into the support too. And the Nigeria international said they are learning to block out the criticism.
He said: “It’s good for me and I think for a few more experienced players. I don’t think it’s easy, but you have to do it. You have no choice. If you want to make a good season, you need to block out it and stay focused.
“The league is not lost or won in August. In the next months, we will need to keep winning games to be as close as possible. Also before the Celtic game, I think we had some really good performances. And then obviously, you want that one game to go different. But also, you cannot let one result distract you.
“Like I said, we are growing. The best is yet to come for us. And I think everybody can see that. We just have to stay focused on our own.”
Clement sat his players down for a no-holds barred debrief of the September 1 derby demolition. Since then they have responded with four wins and four clean sheets.
And Dessers said: “You analyse the game, you see what we did wrong, you see what we did well. You try to learn from it, you train on it again. The league is a little bit different because a lot of teams play in a different way against us, but like in these European games, I think these are more similar to the Old Firm games.
“You can see that we made a step already since the end of August and we have to keep growing. Lyon will be a good test for us.”